Locked
by MiketheMaleficar
Summary: Whoever said Drosselmeyer was finished?
1. Prologue

It was a cold wintry night in Goldcrown Town. A lone girl walked through the cold windy streets, no doubt walking home to get out of the cold.

As she walked the wind suddenly shifted, then stopped completely.

And it wasn't just the wind.

Time itself seemed to stop.

The girl looked around, her orange and yellow scarf swinging with her neck's every movement.

She finally saw what looked like a grandfather clock, standing atop a roof across the street from her, and a voice came from the clock as its face swung opened like and old door.

"Good to see you again, little Duck~"

She knew that voice all too well..

"Nice to see you too Mr. Drosselmeyer..."

How long had it been? 6 years at least...

"You don't sound too thrilled to see me child~"

She wasn't, usually when she saw this man, Drosselmeyer, bad things followed. Well, bad for HER anyhow.

"What do you want?"

She asked in the friendliest tone she could muster.

"I've been around the worlds and skipped through time, all to find something more fun than tragedy~ And do you know what I found~?"

She didn't like where this was going.

"What did you find Mr. Drosselmeyer?"

Droselmyer laughed.

"Have you ever heard of, a **CROSSOVER**, little Duck~?"


	2. The Duck and The Bounty Hunter

Fakir's face curled into a snarl.

"Drosselmyer's back?!"

He shouted, angrily slamming his fist on the table.

"THAT ASSHOLE!"

Duck patted his shoulder, trying to calm the young man so he wouldn't abuse any more furniture.

"C-calm down Fakir... Let me finish."

Fakir unclenched his fists, he couldn't stay too mad around Duck... how could anyone really? She had a very calming effect on people... That and she got scared easily and he really didn't want that.

"He said something about a '_Crossover_'... A story that mingles with another story directly..."

Fakir's scowl only got deeper. He didn't like where this was going one BIT.

"So... what's he planning?"

"He'll be throwing a character from another story into ours..." Duck sighed, knowing deep down how Fakir would react...

"WE are not getting involved then," Fakir shouted, confirming Duck's suspicion. "I refuse to be in another tragic story for Drosselmyer's sick amusement!"

"I tried to refuse Fakir! Trust me... I did... but... well..."

"But what?!"

Duck quickly looked at the ground, and her voice became quiet. "T-there's no need to shout Fakir..." She said, with a frightened tone.

Fakir's face lightened, he honestly hated scaring her, but he was PISSED to say the least.

"I'm sorry... But **WHAT** stopped you from refusing this damned role?"

Duck spoke up a bit, her tone soft, and worried.

"Drosselmyer said that if we don't get involved... That this new character would die, by the hands of the town's citizens."

"Not OUR problem." Fakir scoffed, crossing his arms and turning away.

"We can't just leave this person to die in a world he or she does not belong to Fakir!"

Fakir CRINGED.

She was using that same tone that she did when Fakir was trying to keep Myt- Siegfried... From HIS role...

Duck had put her foot down, there was no changing her mind now. And as much as Fakir didn't want to be involved in Drosselmyer's newest scheme, he didn't want Duck to have to play this new role alone...

"Fine, we'll help this 'new character'... but if I feel that this role is too dangerous for yo- for us... we're backing out."

Duck smiled, she knew if she stood up for herself, she could make Fakir see that they couldn't leave an innocent to die. She was getting better at that.

"Now the question is, how are we going to find this person?"

He woke up, covered in cold sweat, gasping for air. He was back in his bed, like nothing happened.

""A... A dream?""

He laid back, and began to remember... falling asleep at his new safehouse, and waking up in what looked like a frozen cave...

0o0o0o0o0

_He remembered a beautiful young woman in the garb of a prima donna, he remembered her on pointe, frozen in a perfect pirouette. She looked unhealthy, paler and thinner than she ought be, as if she had been trapped in this dark, barren place for a long time. Her face looked sorrowful, her eyes shut tight. Her skin was cracked in several different places, and her dress was dirty, and tattered._

At first he thought she was a statue, however upon careful speculation he realized she was alive, if you could call the state she was in 'alive'.

He didn't want to get too close, but no matter how much his mind nagged that this was a bad idea, his body pressed forward, closer to her, as if he had lost control of it completely.

He reached his hand out, the red gem of her necklace tempting him to come close, and touch it...

Suddenly she grabbed his wrist and opened her eyes, there was nothing there. The two black holes suddenly lit up, glowing the same eerie red as the gem around her neck, like two droid optics were shoved into her empty eye sockets.

She smiled a gruesome, sinister smile and tilted her head. She moved like an old broken doll, it almost seemed like her head was going to fall right off from the new angle.

He tried to pull away, but her grip was FIRM, she would not let go, and she wouldn't budge either. The rest of her body was frozen to the icy ground.

And then she spoke, her voice like a once sweet voice on a record, distorted and warped by time and lack of use...

"Will... You... Dance... With me~?"

His whole body shook, terrified and trying to escape. Her other hand grabbed his neck, squeezing tightly, cutting off his air.

He scrambled to get free, but he was powerless before this being.

He felt his body going limp, and his vision blurring out...

0o0o0o0o0

He shook his head, pulling his mind from the awful memory.

"Dis is ridiculous... It was just a crinkin' dream... Why am I..."

He was trembling, he could almost feel her cold bony fingers, still firmly wrapped around his wrist, around his neck..

He shook his head, getting out of bed and walking into the bathroom to clean himself up.

He opened the mirror cupboard, and pulled out some sleeping pills he got from the Coruscant Black Market and took a few.  
He washed his face and closed the mirror, only to see that sinister grin, and horrible glowing eyes, once again.

He jumped back, smashing the mirror with his hand. He fell backwards, looking around him quickly.

No one was there.

He sat up, for the first time, in a LONG time, Cad Bane... Was afraid.

He looked down at his hand, shards of the mirror jutting from his knuckles and fingers.

He pulled them out and started cleaning out the gashes. He shook his head, angered at his fear, it was only a dream afterall, right?

He looked at himself in the shattered mirror shards, scowling deeply.

"Ridiculous..."


	3. Worlds Collide

Bane was used to nightmares.  
He'd had them since he was a child, since 'The Incident'.  
But this... This one was getting to him.  
He was trying to work, but that dream... Just the thought of those sinister eyes sent shivers up his spine.  
Unfortunately, the thought would not leave his mind...  
He could still feel those cold, cracked, boney fingers around his neck... Hear that horrible voice... See that Star's awful grin...

He tried to focus on the task at hand. He'd been hired someone who went by, 'D', to deliver a package to a specified location. Unfortunately, that location was the Jedi Temple.

Oh he'd already broken into that damned place once before, even stole a Holocron, one of the Jedi's most safely guarded secrets.  
However this time, he had no help, as the job was to go alone, and he had no idea how their amped up security worked, since he had no time to do any recon work.

Cad looked around, no guards in sight, however he knew they'd have SOMETHING...

He stayed along the wall, moving slowly keeping an eye out for any Jedi traps. Once he was pretty sure that he was clear, for now, he made his way to the top of the building, so lost in thought, he stopped paying attention...  
And set off one of the very few motion sensor traps that the Jedi had installed.

"SHIT!" Bane said to himself, dodging the onslaught of plasma charges. "One crinkin' trap on the whole crinkin' wall!" He proceeded to curse to himself, shooting down the plasma turrets that opened up along the wall.

After getting rid of the nuisances, he continued upwards until he reached the rooftop, where 'D' was supposed to meet him.

"He'd better show up before the clones do..." He muttered, looking around, knowing they were probably alerted when the trap went off.

Then, he noticed something; something that was not there before.

An odd looking clock.

Bane didn't recognize the design, or even what kind of time it read. It stood about as tall as him, with strange 'I's and 'V's, and a couple of 'X's around it, with three hands.

One moving quite quickly, he determined that was the 'Second hand'. Then there was a small one, pointing to the 'VII' symbol, and a longer one pointing to the 'IX'.

He stared at it for some time, but he simply didn't get it. "The Jedi collect some weird stuff..." He said turning away from the clock.

Suddenly he heard a voice.

"FREEZE!"

Cad turned back toward the clock, "Crink...".

About a dozen clones had him at gunpoint. Cad, being at a tactical disadvantage, hid behind the clock. The clones fired, but instead of the clock protecting Bane, the bolts went through the clock, not even leaving a scratch.

"You're kidding me!" Cad said darting off, avoiding plasma charges, firing a few back. The Clones ran through the clock, one fired a well aimed shot, it came right at Cad's face and then-

It stopped.

Cad stared at the halted charge that was less than an inch away from his face. His eyes widened, as he could feel the heat, radiating from the plasma. He stepped away from it, and a laugh came from somewhere.

"That was a bit close, wasn't it~"

Cad looked back to the clock and saw it opened, like a door. Inside was some kind of strange vortex and a creepy pair of eyes.

"Okay... I get it, those sleeping pills were drugs... An' I'm havin' a bad trip...""

A man formed around they eyes. He was dressed in the STRANGEST clothes with old pens in every pocket, and the goofiest hat he'd ever seen.

"No, Cad Bane. This is all VERY real~ I am 'D', but since we've met officially, you may call me Drosselmeyer~"

Cad looked at him with a raised eye ridge. "I don't really care what your name is..."" He walked towards him. ""So's long as ya pay me for this.""

Suddenly he felt himself get pulled into the vortex, through Drosselmeyer.

"Oh you'll be payed in FULL, Cad Bane~"


	4. Crossed Over

Cad fell faster and further into the swirling vortex. He tried over and over to activate his rocket boots, to no avail. He looked around for something to hold on to but there was nothing. Then he looked down.

A small, quaint looking town was coming at him VERY fast. He was no physics buff, be he could tell he was going to die at the rate he was falling. He figured he's probably reached terminal speed a few meters up.

"Son of a bitch!" He shouted as a last act of defiance, or what he thought would be his last act of defiance. That was before the small package he has been carrying the whole time for 'D', floated out of his coat in front of him and began to glow, the blue light forming a bubble of some sort around him, causing him to slow down.

He landed softly in front of what seemed to be a school. The package that carried him down opened, and a small blue gem emerged from the box.

It was shaped like a bird of some sort and was pulsing with some sort of energy, of what kind he was unsure.

As the box fell to the ground, Cad stared at the gem for a moment, deciding not to question the thing that just saved his life. It began floating away, and Cad followed, not really knowing what else to do.

Everything about this world was strange, the language of the street names and shop signs was one Cad did not know. Names like 'Sonne' were odd sounding when he tried to say them, he was pretty certain her was pronouncing them wrong. Everything was made with intricate stone work, such masonry was long forgotten where Cad was from. Even the air felt odd. It smelled like warm bread, flowers and trees; the wind felt soft, light and cool on his face. He looked up at the single sun in the sky, it was probably around 6am judging by where it was and how it was rising.

Then the people showed up, walking out of their homes to start the day.  
Upon seeing Cad they panicked, having never seen a blue man with pupiless red eyes before. Frightened women ran to their husbands and shielded their younglings. Cad paid them no mind, following the gem, wanting to just get out of there... until one man tried to bean him upside the head with a flowerpot.

Cad spun around, grabbing the man by the arm and twisting it back. "You got a problem?" He asked twisting it further, causing the man to drop the flowerpot. As soon as it fell it shattered, the other men looked up, seeing Cad subdue one of their own. The man Cad had incapacitated cried out to the townspeople. "IT'S A DEMON! BRING IT TO THE CHURCH! BURN IT! BURN IT!"

"What'd you call me?!" Cad asked with a growl, his fang-like teeth showing. Some women screamed at the sight of them. "IT IS A DEMON! KILL IT!" They screamed, their husbands jumping into action.

The men rushed him. Cad reached for his blasters, only to find his empty holster. 'SHIT! They must've fallen out when I fell...' He put his hand-to-hand experience to use, knocking out a few, only to be greeted by 10 more. Cad found himself overpowered by the many scared, theocratic, townsmen.

Cad kicked and squirmed, trying to break free of them. He looked around for the gem that saved him before, only to find it had floated away without him.

'Shitshitshit-'  
He looked around more frantically for the man who brought him here. "DROSELMYER!"


	5. First Encounters of the Strangest Kind

Duck looked out the window with a sigh. There was no sign so far of this 'Crossover' victim. It was yet early in the day, almost 6 in fact, and anything still could happen.

She was restless, the sun was rising, still quite low in the sky, tainting the sky with it's golden rays. The birds were singing, as they did every morning, however this morning their song seemed... Ominous.

Duck sat down a bowl of birdseed and opened her window; the birds piled in to get their always ready breakfast. She listened closely to their song, smiling as the birds sang around her.

Suddenly she heard the deafing caw of a crow from behind her. Here eyes widened and terror shined through in her expression. She spun around ready to 'attack', but what she saw was not a crow... But a mocking bird. The bird seemed ominous, it's eyes unmoving and staring directly at Duck... Was it this little bird the cause of all that ominous feeling within this morning's song?

Duck knelt down in front of it. "Are you hungry little guy?" She asked, offering it some birdseed. The mockingbird pecked her hand roughly and flew out the window. Duck pulled her hand close, "OW!" The little bird had drawn blood, it oozed out of the fresh wound in the middle of her hand.  
"I guess he wasn't hungry..." Duck said pulling out a handkerchief and wrapping it around her hand.

Just then, a sound came from outside. It sounded like a fight, with people shouting 'DEMON' and 'KILL IT'. Duck looked out the window to see a crowd, not more than a few streets over, shouting and pointing. She run downstairs and outside to see what the commotion was about. However before she got to the crowd, something floated up to her...

A blue gem, in the shape of a bird, pulsing with a magic she had almost forgotten. Duck reached out to the gem, and it greeted her with a warm pulse of familiar energy, she had long forgotten what this power felt like, this warm, transforming power.

Suddenly, she heard someone cry out in the middle of the ruckus.

"DROSELMYER!"

Duck looked over to see the townsmen beating the life out of...a BLUE man! She had never seen such a being before in her whole life! His skin was a deep blue, like the ocean, and his eyes were a beautiful, solid ruby red.

This HAD to be the poor soul Droselmyer had dragged into the story. She tried to shove her way through the crowd to no avail. She ran back to the smith's shop, looking frantically for her friend and only real ally in this. "FAKIR I FOUND HIM!"

Fakir, who was working with Karon, his father, at the time, stopped what he was doing and ran over. "WHERE?!" Duck lead him out to the street, but everyone was gone. "They... They were beating him... They called him a demon!" Fakir looked ahead. "They would have taken him to the church then, let's go!"

The two ran off. A little girl, no older than 10, ran out of the smith shop and chased after then, banging the drum strapped to her chest in time with her footsteps. "WAIT FOR ME ZORA!"

-

'Well... Dis is humiliatin'...'

Cad was thinking to himself, stripped of his belongings and his clothes, chained to a stone wall in the church courtyard.

Some priest was rambling some 'ward of holy light' to 'keep this demon's evil power and corruption at bay'. It was all droid-slag, Cad stood there, unphased by this priest's mumbo-jumbo.

The priest looked more and more scared by the second. He probably figured that Cad'd be screaming, or shrieking, or something by now...

"This demon has proven too powerful for my skill! Stoning is the only option!" The priest called out, stepping away to let the townsfolk have their way with Cad.  
The townsfolk began hurling rocks at him, and they weren't screwing around. Cad winced and struggled against his chains, deep teal bruises began forming all over his torso, one of the larger rocks cracked one of his ribs and try as he might, Cad could not break free of his chains.

One of the younglings managed to hit Cad's head. His vision became blurry and green blood dripped from the wound. Just when it seemed he would die then and there, Cad heard a voice from the crowd.

"STOP!"

Everyone in the crowd looked over, to see a young woman, with fiery orange hair, sky blue eyes and the cutest freckles you'd ever see. She walked through the crowd with a man. His hair was a rich, dark green, his eyes, a much brighter green; he was built pretty well, and looked like he could fight. On the man's shoulders, was a pale white little girl, with lime green hair and big blue eyes.

The woman stood in front of Cad and faced the crowd, arms out protectively. "THIS MAN HAS DONE NOTHING WRONG! He has not harmed anyone, except to defend himself!"

The man with the girl on his shoulders stood next to her, his arms out in the same way. "You should all be ashamed! This man has committed no crime, and harmed no one with his presence, yet you all would put him to death over APPEARENCE?!"

The girl spoke up, banging her little drum loudly. "YOU'RE ALL BIG MEANIES ZORA!" Oh! How that did NOTHING for Cad's headache...

Two more people climbed up on the stage. One was a blonde with sweet, yet so sinister, green eyes; the other was more tanned, with purple hair and determined blue eyes. The two stood at Cad's sides, the five together acting as a shield. The blonde spoke up. ""I'll stand by Duck even if she's doomed to fail~!"" Then the tanned one. ""They're right! You should all be ashamed!""

Cad stood there, flabbergasted. He didn't know why these people were helping him, but as usual, he thought it best not to question anything, or anyone, that was saving his life.

The orange haired woman turned to him, looking him dead in the eyes, her blue eyes shimmered with an unnatural, but not unpleasant, energy. He looked around her neck, where the gem that saved him before dangled around her neck.

-

Duck stood before the crowd, frightened. Even with Fakir and Uzura to aid her in her task of saving this man, she was genuinely afraid of the angry, confused townsfolk before her.

Then, from the crowd, her two friends, Pike and Lillia, stepped forth to help as well! Lilly spoke up, "I'll stand by Duck even if she's doomed to fail~!"  
'Same old Lilly...' Duck thought with a little smile. Then Pike spoke, "They're right! You should all be ashamed!"  
'Pike too~' Duck's smile widened.

She turned around, and looked at the poor, beaten man before her. His ruby red eyes met her blue ones, and for a moment, the world stood still.

This man, while a bit odd looking, was actually rather attractive... He had lean defined muscles, a slender build... He almost looked like a dancer... She blushed a bit, staring at this strange, beautiful man.

"Take a picture sweetheart... It'd last longer..." He said weakly. Duck jumped a bit, and began unchaining him. "Don't worry, we know who sent you here... We can help you." She helped the man to his feet, and held him up. "I'm Duck, what's your name?" He looked up at her, an eye ridge raised. "Duck? ... Like... the bird?" She nodded. ""Liiike the bird."" The man looked down, eyes closing. He'd lost quite a bit of blood and was no doubt exhausted from everything this morning.

"Bane... Cad Bane..."


End file.
